Boing Boing pal and frequent Boing Boing Video collaborator Eddie Codel is in Washington DC today, and has been videoblogging from the inauguration. Above: He shot this amazing, simple little video of the "helicopter of happiness" carrying George W. Bush and fellow war criminals out of DC, and back to the hell that belched them forth.
As I watched Eddie's chopper clip just now, I couldn't help but think of that scene in the Wizard of Oz where the wicked witch zooms off on her broomstick, then everything turns into dancing munchkins and everlasting uptempo musical numbers.* I poked around on YouTube and couldn't find the clip where the witch flies off to screaming violins, but I remember it looking a little like Eddie's video above. I did find the Oz clip that follows, which feels a little like America does tonight, with all the inaugural balls and "END OF AN ERROR"** keggers erupting throughout the land.
I suspect the next four years won't quite live up to the massive, collective, candy-colored orgasm of hope we experienced today. But progress, not perfection, is enough for me right now.
Incidentally, Wizard of Oz came out in 1939, in the waning years of our nation's first Great Depression. I don't think the present one's anywhere near over for us. But I hope its ending is as happy as this.
* I am not insinuating that Obama is Dorothy, or a friend of Dorothy.
** HT: Scott Shulman
Previously:
☛ BB Video: Shepard Fairey and the Obama Poster, on Inauguration Day
☛ BB Video: Sean Bonner reports from Obama Inauguration in DC
Update: Boing Boing commenter THEQUICKBROWNFOX points out that for them, Obama's inauguration ceremony hearkened back to the inauguration speech of Nelson Mandela in 1994. Mandela was, of course, South Africa's first black president, and his ascendance marked the end of apartheid. Link to video of that speech, over at msnbc.com (I couldn't find anything embeddable that included his speech in entirety).
